Volcan Pacaya is one of 30 volcanoes in Guatemala. It's not one of the tallest, but it is one of the most active. It's early Saturday morning, and we're 25 kilometers south of Antigua. The trip required a dicey 1.5-hour van ride with 13 other tourists from Antigua. We're in a micron-sized village just outside the entrance to Parque Nacional Pacaya.
Our group included Germans, Mexicans and Americans. We trudged the1.75 miles or so uphill through a forest to the lava fields. We didn't see much in the way of wildlife, but there are"wildcats" here, according to Carlos, our guide--also wild boars, coyotes, squirrels and jackrabbits. By mid-morning we came across the first signs of the active volcano--a long pile of hardened volcanic rock that descended from the top of the mountain. We could see the smoke coming from the top of the volcano all morning, and now we could see two distinct orange-red ribbons spilling from a point near the top of the volcano. We walked across green fields, skirting another mountain that was shrouded in clouds. We began climbing over the fields of volcanic rock--much of it only ossified for the past six months or so. Scrambling over the rocks was precarious, but the odd shapes and formations offered surprising traction. Forget using it for handholds though--even the most benign touch of the hand left a scratch. Ascending one ridge, we finally felt the heat from the lava above and it was obvious some of the rock at our feet only recently cooled--some was still smoking. One of our German companions compared the terrain to that of Mordor, the dwelling place of Sauron in Tolkien's Middle-earth. We proceeded to a point where we could see lava belching up from the ground, occasionally sending rock tumbling down. We all took pictures at this point, about 30 yards from molten lava, before heading back.
Guatemala is an incredible place, and we only saw a small part of it. We tallied at least 50 bird species and likely saw or heard many more than that. Identifying certain birds was near impossible--there are 60 possible hummingbird species alone and we only were sure enough to identify one species.
Another, final, leftover from Tikal. Walking up the pyramids and temples there was more harrowing than any climb this Midwesterner has attempted before. At left is recently excavated Temple V. (An aside: the number of in situ ruins at Tikal probably easily exceeds the number of excavated ruins. Temple III is still buried in jungle, with just the roof-comb sticking out of what looks like a small hill.) You can barely make out the people sitting at the top of the steps in the picture. To get to that point, you essentially have to climb a 15-story ladder. Sitting on the narrow ledge at the top--no handholds, railings--made me want to climb right back down. But it wasn't just the big temples that were scary. Some smaller structures (~50 feet high) had very steep steps. You could climb right up with no problem, but getting back down required some sort of shimmying ass-scramble. (The more nimble bounded down without a touch of the hand.) The views from the top, though, were worth the effort.
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